Kirk runs mentoring sessions most Sundays. If you're interested in getting some hands-on experience with bees from a real expert, send a message here.

HoneyLove.org has a number of great events coming up. This is Rob and Chelsea's group, and they are making amazing progress toward getting beekeeping legalized in the city of Los Angeles and beyond.

Chemical-free beekeeping pioneer Michael Bush will be speaking at a hands-on workshop here in Los Angeles on Sunday, October 7th. Watch the blog and our Yahoo group for more information on this and how to sign up.

And be sure to check out all the information right here on the blog—the links at the top of the page are a good way to start.

7/22/12

I found out your website today... I'm really enjoying, even I don't do beekeeping... We are planning to do it as part of our projects for sustainable living in Zambia and later in Brazil (my country).

I should say that its really impressive how well I can understand what you explain, and gotta say, love your laugh... hehehe It really make me laugh and enjoy your movies... Thanks for all the information, hope we can keep getting it for free, so more people can get to know how to do things backwards in way to keep moving forward... =))

7/17/12

Me and Val did a cut out, oh, about a month ago. It was big and ran down below the foundation wall. We could only get 40% of the hive out. So we took 4 big frames of open Brood and nurse bees. Put them in a cardboard box and took them to Jordan's house.

I checked them Saturday. They made their own queen and are up and running. I love letting the bees do their thing.

7/15/12

LA Backwards Beekeepers Rob and Chelsea McFarland are leading the charge to get beekeeping legalized in LA. They're pursuing a successful neighborhood-by-neighborhood campaign, building political support and momentum as they go.

Along the way, through their site HoneyLove.org they're helping to spread the word about bees' essential place in our environment and how anyone can learn to become a beekeeper. Now they're profiled in an LA Times piece:

McFarland and his wife, Chelsea, became interested in beekeeping but discovered that Los Angeles does not allow hives in residential zones. So, the McFarlands decided to launch an unusual grass-roots drive to change the city's law by first winning support from at least 10 of L.A.'s 95 neighborhood councils.

Now, almost a year and a half later, their devotion has won support from eight councils. And an enthusiastic city councilman has initiated a formal study, a first step that could bring L.A. on board with other bee-friendly cities, such as New York, Seattle, San Francisco and Santa Monica.

"We have to be clear that this environment that we live in is threatened, that bees are an essential part," said Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who boasts that he has two wild hives in his yard.

...a friend of a friend had a bee tree come down in the recent storm, and instead of calling the exterminator they called me instead! And thanks to Backwards Beekeepers, I’d read enough tutorials on wild hive cutouts that I felt confident enough to give it a shot.

These storms have been devastating for hundreds of people. Many of my friends are without power in this hundred-degree heat. (I’ve opened my house and pool to them and their kids.) But this particular family came very, very close to utter catastrophe. It is an absolute miracle that this bee tree, about 5 feet in diameter at the base, fell away from the house. I’m so glad that their family came through without injury or property damage.

This is only the bottom half of the tree:

And the top half is over here:

It is about 3 feet in diameter at the point it broke off. It could have killed someone if it had fallen on the house.

Another miracle is that the bee colony inside was fairly ok. There were thousands of bees in there, and astonishingly they were the most docile bees I’ve ever worked with, especially considering what they’d just been through.

7/2/12

A couple of days ago I got to visit these beautiful hives at the allotment (that's British for community garden) in Biggin Hill, Upper Norwood. It's about 9 miles south of central London.

My friends Pippa and Charlie (seen above with daughter Willow) have been tending a plot here for several months and weren't even aware that they share this space with about ten very healthy and active bee hives.

While I was visiting and getting a tour of the grounds, we met Melvyn (above), who's been gardening here for several years. He clued us in that just down the path, behind a small stand of trees, is Bee World. The tree divider seems like a great idea to help keep the bees from establishing a direct flight path to the garden, thus lessening collisions with the gardeners.

7/1/12

I got a call from Mike. He works for the City of Oxnard and had a "bee problem."

They had landed on his bike!

I went out and tried to brush most bees into the box.

There were so many places where they were hiding, including under the speedometer, that I decided to smoke them out of there. Most flew up and landed again on the bike.

I suited Mike up in an extra suit, and when I had smoked most of them away, he moved the bike to another place. The bees came down and landed in the wooden bee box. Exactly what we wanted. I gave them a couple of hours to regroup and picked them up, just in time for a long weekend.